the business of growing up
by highboys
Summary: When Aoki's grandfather died, Aoki, his favorite grandchild, inherited one of the side businesses; she got the cosplay restaurant. AU, for ezyl.


**Title:** the business of growing up  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Bakuman  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Fukuda/Aoki/Hiramaru

For ezyl :)

* * *

><p>When Aoki's grandfather died, Aoki, his favorite grandchild, inherited one of the side businesses, which meant that it was absolutely shameful and ridiculous and too well-meaning for Aoki to say no. Her older sister, despite not having come visit, got the car. She, on the other hand, got a cosplay restaurant.<p>

"It's not all that bad," said her mother, shrugging in a way that meant ages of suffering and tolerance. "You could have gotten the bougainvilleas instead."

Aoki failed to see how a business that thrived on perverted customers with fantasies that littered the boards of pixiv and 4chan would ever match up to tame, wholesome flowers. Perhaps her mother had been watching too many noontime shows featuring skinny boy band members prowling the streets in search for the latest trend.

"It's shameless," said Aoki, quick to condemn.

"It's - what's the word?" Her mother mused, cocking a kitchen knife with the well-intentioned bravado of a semi-careless matriarch at Aoki, as if internally reciting the will from memory. "_Hip_."

Aoki blanched. Her grandfather had probably written the will in a state of half-lucidity, the most he could come up with in the last stretch of his life, occupied by fantasies of a mansion populated by the bustiest (and dimmest) women at his behest. She blamed foreign television shows. "Grandfather wouldn't know that hip is anything but a body part."

"Darling," said her mother, pityingly, "you know how he is - er, was - about his midlife crises."

"Crisis," corrected Aoki. Aoki hardly thought the word deserved to be pluralized. He'd been having the same crisis on and off like a girlfriend with a bipolar disorder since thirty eight, or so her father said. Judging by the look on her mother's face, she thought so too.

Her tone must have come off as more irritated than usual. Her mother paused in dicing the garlic. "Are you on one of your lady days, Yuriko, or are you having one of those adolescent tantrums?"

"_Mother_," said Aoki, mortified. It was amazing how generally improper and devil-may-care the rest of her family was; if Aoki had anyone to blame for her... intensity, then she could point out that nurture, rather than nature, was the culprit. Someone had to be the sane and normal one in the family, _clearly_. Aoki got up from the kitchen table and searched for the Darjeeling tea bags and the artificial sweetener.

Alright, so perhaps normal was a bit off the mark.

"I can never tell, you know," her mother droned on, setting the chopping board aside. "Maybe your sister wasn't joking about your 'refined sensibilities'."

Her mother made quotation marks with her fingers. Aoki had half a mind to call Yuuko a prat to her mother's face, but grudgingly didn't refute her sister's point. Alright, so she was a little too mature (read: socially incompetent) for her age. Was that so bad?

"I suppose the only easy part about this is that it involves tea," said Aoki, as if to console herself.

"Customer service is always a positive experience, and not just for picking up boys," said her mother, sagely. "You could always put it in your CV, for after college."

Aoki winced.

"Ah," said her mother. "I suspect the recency effect is still at it."

To her credit, Aoki didn't drown herself with the string of her tea bag. Buried under her text books and her Math homework was the shameful result of her mock exam for Todai; the cram school gave her a C. She'd been ready to jump off a building any time soon, but Yuuko had screeched and there had been a fight somewhere in the mess ("It's a stupid mock exam!" "It's a premonition of my _life_."), but her father took great care not to leave the ladder or rope around the house.

"I should study," said Aoki.

"No," said her mother, "you should _breathe_ and not get too much of a complex about failing - which you didn't, really."

"What good would breathing do if I can't even make the grade," said Aoki, glumly. Her family didn't get it _at all_.

* * *

><p>The family lawyer called it a conditional bequest - as far as Aoki was concerned, as long as profits didn't quite reach her grandfather's standards, she could wipe her hands off the entire matter. If she were a less responsible grandchild (and, as a woman traumatized by the initial shock and subsequent spells of terror that only the rejection of a dream university was wont to incur, less paranoid about not being able to get into a good college after high school - she really needed a better back-up plan), she would have happily let the shop be overrun by the mafia and the juvenile delinquents hanging out at the combini two blocks away. If only.<p>

Being a self-respecting grandchild, she figured she needed to do the research before launching herself into her foray to failure. And who else, she thought, knocking on Fukuda's door, would be able to provide her with the reference material she needed other than Fukuda, who spent hours obsessing over the latest Jump manga while attempting to pocket the latest issue of Transistor Teaset?

Fukuda was her next-door neighbor who was a year below her. She'd seen him when he still had black hair and didn't think that bandanas were the coolest thing ever (back then, it had been Dragonball and the latest SEGA game, which said a lot about how long she'd known him), but it wasn't as if they went out of their way to hang out with each other. Aoki, frankly, thought Fukuda needed to get his priorities (academics) straight, and Fukuda kind of thought she was too snobbish for her own good.

"I need your manga," said Aoki, as soon as Fukuda's head poked out of the door, and Fukuda stared at her outstretched hand suspiciously.

Fukuda looked like he wanted to say something snippy like _I might need it too, you know, for wanking and stuff_, but after Aoki had repeated his exact words to his mother, he never said anything like that to her again. Instead, he did the next best thing: he shut the door.

"Okay, you're being weird," was the first thing Fukuda said to Aoki from behind the safety of his bedroom door. Aoki took a deep breath, dropped the tray of jelly cakes Fukuda's mother had given her to the ground, and turned the doorknob.

Locked.

"Fukuda-kun," said Aoki, "I'm giving you ten seconds to open the door before I tell your mother about the magazine under your bed sheets."

The door cracked open, but only a fraction. "It's not even mine," said Fukuda, sulking, but let Aoki sidestep him on her way inside. Aoki set the tray to the nearest visible surface available.

"Aren't you supposed to be in mourning or," said Fukuda, but hesitated.

"Yes," said Aoki, looking at her palms.

"Look," said Fukuda, "I'm sorry about your gramps, okay? He was kinda cool, in a weird, disturbing sort of way."

She wanted to say, "Thank you, Fukuda-kun," but all she said was, "I'm sorry too."

"So," said Fukuda, still looking a little awkward as he rummaged through his closet, "what do you need all the manga for?"

She told him.

"Wait, wait, wait," said Fukuda, eyes wide. "You got a _what_?"

"An establishment for drinking tea with friends," said Aoki, stiffly.

"Holy shit, you got a _maid café_."

"Is it too late to renovate it into a combini," said Aoki, despairing at the rising excitement in Fukuda's voice. The pitchy screeching gave it away.

"No, no, nononono," said Fukuda, "you are not taking away my only chance at seeing chicks in one of those frilly uniforms."

He sounded a little too desperate. Aoki privately wondered if it were good that his hopes at reliving anime fantasy number 89 were dashed when their school turned out to be the only one in the district that didn't feel the need to hold cultural festivals. She closed her eyes.

"And knowing you," said Fukuda, "you need my superior intellect and social expertise, right?"

She had no comment about his intellect and thought that the latter was merely a triviality, so she didn't bother arguing. "Sure." Whatever.

"This is rich," said Fukuda, dumping stacks of magazines on the floor and reaching over his desk to grope around for a calendar. He marked down _SURREAL - alien invasion?_ on the date. "But also a little awkward. Are you really that desperate?"

Last time she'd been in his room, she had dissected Fukuda's fanaticism with single-minded cruelty borne out of Fukuda's teasing that she had subpar knowledge of pop culture (she really did). Fukuda didn't talk to her for _weeks_, which was nothing new.

"Well," said Aoki, a little helplessly, "I've been given a shop to manage and I don't know what to do with it."

Fukuda rubbed at his eyes, glaring down at his magazines. "Can't you just sell it and spend money on bribing the registrar at Todai?"

Aoki frowned at him.

"Ooh, sorry. Didn't think it was that much of a sore spot."

Did everyone in the neighborhood know? Aoki wondered if that was why the Moritakas across the neighborhood grocery had kept giving her sympathizing looks and plied her with tea and cake for the past week. Even the Miyoshis were starting to act concerned.

"I could hire you," said Aoki. "As a consultant of sorts. Maybe even make you co-owner if it goes well."

"Holy shit," said Fukuda, "holy shit, am I being scouted for having an inane amount of knowledge my mother condemns on a dailt basis? Is this how those JE dudes feel like?"

"You make it sound like I'm propositioning you for shameless activities," said Aoki, flatly. Oh, wait.

"Ew," said Fukuda, looking thoroughly grossed out. "When do we start?"

They spent the rest of the afternoon educating Aoki on the wonders of maid cafés ("It's supposed to be cute; what would _you_ know?") She didn't tell him about the bequest. If it failed, then it was too bad. She'd been preparing herself for it with the kind of fatalism she would normally have associated with Fukuda. But looking at him now, with his eagerness, she felt a little sad.

It was probably just the jelly cake.

* * *

><p>"So I was thinking," boomed Fukuda's voice, beside her, and Aoki, to her credit, did not scream and fall from her seat. In fact, she set her History textbook down on Fukuda's head with the finesse of a woman raining down on a rat in her kitchen, and she absolutely did not shriek. "<em>Ow<em>."

"Juniors aren't allowed in the third floor," said Aoki, hissing. Fukuda rubbed at the top of his head, scowling but not leaning away from the window. Suddenly, Aoki was regretting choosing the seat nearest the window facing the hallway.

"We should get some help," said Fukuda, as if he hadn't heard Aoki at all.

"Yes," said Aoki, "I figured that much. Wonderful idea. Now can you go?" It was already a miracle they'd seen each other voluntarily _twice_ in the same week. They could have gone for months without contact, no problem. Why Fukuda was actively seeking her out for some useless proposition, she didn't know; she could have spent five minutes immersed in the wonders of the beginning of the Meiji era.

"No," said Fukuda, scathingly, "I mean, we should do this like those corporate assholes. Minimize cost and maximize profit and the whole shebang, you know?"

"It's nice to hear you've been listening in Economics class."

"Yeah, I ran out of paper to doodle on," said Fukuda, tapping his fingers impatiently on her desk. "But anyway, I figured we should cut back on labor costs, especially since you're paying me god-knows-what figure afterwards."

Aoki raised her book, letting it hover above Fukuda's arm. "You do realize your consultancy is dubious, at best."

"Never insult the master," said Fukuda, pushing at the offensive book towards Aoki.

"And how," said Aoki, "do you plan on scrimping? Forced labor?"

"No," said Fukuda, grinning, showing teeth, "I've got a better idea."

* * *

><p>Fukuda's idea of free labor was, in most respects, positive reinforcement, especially when it involved Hiramaru Kazuya, the student council treasurer.<p>

Hiramaru was in the same year level as Fukuda, and most teachers bemoaned how utterly _lazy_ he was in spite of his brilliance. Aoki suspected Hiramaru would pass Todai a-okay if he even made the bare minimum effort of showing up come testing day, and she should have felt a little more bitter about it if he weren't so... well.

"Aoki-san," said Hiramaru, absolutely fluttering in his seat. "You look _wonderful_ today."

Aoki smiled, a little pained, but held out her hand for Hiramaru to shake. Hiramaru seemed to suddenly lose his bone structure with the way he slumped against his seat, as if weakened by her presence. Hiramaru, who proclaimed his love to Aoki and every girl within a five mile radius, but was still unfailingly loyal and dependable to a fault. "What a doormat," muttered Fukuda, pumping his fist in the air.

"Er," said Aoki, "is your friend alright?"

"Oh, he'll be fine," said Fukuda, flippantly. "He's just stopping himself from coming in his pants while holding your hand."

"What?"

"Nothing," said Fukuda, quickly. "So. Let's talk business, shall we?"

Hiramaru seemed to be incapable of doing anything other than agreeing with everything Aoki said, but Fukuda had assured her that Hiramaru wasn't normally as airheaded as he seemed. "He's just a little socially retarded," said Fukuda, and thankfully didn't add the _like you_ threatening to jump out from the tip of his tongue. But Hiramaru was earnest and he seemed capable enough of managing the accounts, if not helping out with the hard labor; she didn't raise her expectations, though.

* * *

><p>The next day, Aoki showed up outside Fukuda and Hiramaru's classroom with the key to the café in her bag.<p>

"How long before you finish cleaning duties?" Aoki asked, peering inside 2-B curiously.

Fukuda pushed his mop to a punk-haired classmate. "I'm ditching it."

Hiramaru would have protested had he not been as desperate to ditch the worst part of the day. He hurried after Fukuda and Aoki and inserted himself neatly between the two of them, alternating between scowling at Fukuda and chatting with Aoki in what, clearly, was the most awkward courtship ritual Fukuda had ever witnessed. Hilarious, too, particularly when Hiramaru nearly fell into a manhole after being distracted by the rustle of Aoki's skirt, the pervert.

The shop was six blocks away, tucked neatly between a ramen store and a karaoke place (which couldn't be good for business, she worried; they'd take all potential customers away). The three of them stood outside, staring at the glass doors and the red brick exterior with a solemnity they didn't know they possessed - well, save Aoki, of course. Aoki opened her book bag and inserted the key in the lock, and hearing a tiny _click_, they opened the door.

"Oh god," said Fukuda, "it's a health hazard in here."

Aoki pursed her lips, running her fingers over one of the tables, absent of a table cloth. The dust was visible even in the poor lighting. "It just needs a little cleaning." At the look Fukuda gave her, she amended, "Alright, maybe a lot of cleaning."

"Cleaning?" Hiramaru echoed, weakly.

"Are you backing out now?" Fukuda asked, glaring at him.

"No, I -"

"Hiramaru-kun," said Aoki, bringing out the big guns like Fukuda had told her to, just in case "the bastard has second thoughts, damn it". "I'd be very happy to be able to work with you."

Hiramaru shut up.

Fukuda found a broom out back and swept the floor without much effort. He passed it over the counter, too lazy to upturn the chairs, and all three of them sat on the counter, staring at the ceiling, paint fading and cobwebs littering the fake chandelier. Suddenly, inhaling second-hand dust made the responsibility more real.

"This will be awesome," said Fukuda, brandishing his broom upwards like a weapon. "You think we could just do this after we graduate?"

"No more tests," said Hiramaru, eyes lighting up.

"No asshole co-workers," said Fukuda, then paused as he eyed Hiramaru and Aoki. "Wait, scratch that. But, you know, it's kinda cool having your own business. Being self-sufficient."

"Filing taxes," said Aoki. "Fending off perverts. We should make a list."

"Oh, shut up."

"I won't let you down, Aoki-san," said Hiramaru. Aoki, a little drunk on sentimentality and missing her grandfather, smiled kindly at Hiramaru.

"Perhaps we can drink tea together here, when everything gets settled," said Aoki, lightly.

"You think you can serve beer?" Fukuda asked, genuinely curious, and looked away from Hiramaru and Aoki's combined stares. "Never mind. Just thought I'd ask."

* * *

><p>An entire Saturday was enough to get started with general cleaning, and by the end of the day the three of them were covered with grime and nursing sodas from the vending machine across the store. They should have been done a little after lunch, but after Fukuda had sprayed them with the hose he'd brought in for god-knows-what purpose, they had to mop the place up and wait for it to dry.<p>

"I just have to say that I hate the both of you," said Fukuda, wincing as Aoki pressed a pack of ice to his cheek, from where he slipped on the wet floor and hit his face against the god damn counter.

"What a baby," sniffed Hiramaru, not a little jealous. He contemplated the mop handle, and Aoki, noticing, put it inside the broom closet in case Hiramaru got any unhealthy ideas.

"So now that we're done cleaning this shit hole," said Fukuda, loudly, "what do we do now?"

"There's supposed to be a manual," said Aoki, opening her bag.

"Oh dear god," said Fukuda, "not another manual."

When Aoki was four, she'd had an obsession with instruction manuals. It was so bad that she'd collected all the manuals from her toys and gave the toys to Fukuda instead. He seemed to like the idea of free things, but claimed to detest the Sailor Moon figurines. (Aoki knew he secretly liked it, but stopped giving them to him when he'd flipped up Sailor Mercury's skirt and asked where her anatomically correct parts where.) The first day of elementary involved a spectacular tantrum in her homeroom classroom when her teacher failed to give her the school handbook, and it was only through sheer force of will that Fukuda prevented her from running for student council. It mostly involved filling everyone else's nightmares with Aoki's iron rule and incapacitating Hiramaru come nominations.

"I suppose you have a manual for sex," Iwase had said, once, to which Aoki had answered that Iwase must have missed health class if she didn't have it.

"First rule," said Aoki, "no bad touching."

Hiramaru looked at his fingers, disappointed.

"I don't understand," said Aoki, "what does bad touching mean? Is there a good kind?"

"I'm not having this conversation with you," said Fukuda, shutting his eyes in an effort to transcend time and space to transport himself to an alternate dimension - anywhere but here. It wasn't working.

"I could teach you the difference over coffee," said Hiramaru, preening.

"You put One Piece to shame," accused Fukuda. "Sanji is more suave than you are, you-"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Hiramaru.

Aoki smiled, tightly. "Hiramaru-kun is my tea friend, not my coffee friend."

"Please tell me the second rule doesn't involve inappropriate comments from Hiramaru."

"My comments are not inappropriate," said Hiramaru. Everyone else ignored him.

"No asking for phone numbers," said Aoki. "Well, that makes sense. We're not running a dating service, after all."

"We aren't?" Hiramaru said, scandalized. "Does email count?"

"Sorry," said Aoki, though she didn't sound apologetic at all. "And no after-work meetings."

"That'd be called stalking. And creepy," said Fukuda. "Do you think we have to ban Hiramaru?"

"My heart belongs to Aoki-san," said Hiramaru, grandly, only Aoki was too busy reading the rest of the manual to bother.

"I think we should ban picture-taking," said Aoki.

"What is this, the piracy police? Are you gonna ban food next? Taking out picture-taking would be cutting down on free advertising."

"We could charge them," said Hiramaru. "For outside food and drinks too."

"Now I remember why they made you treasurer."

"That's actually a good idea," said Aoki.

"Don't flatter him too much," said Fukuda. "I'd say he picked up the idea from a karaoke bar, but that'd mean he actually goes out on dates with girls, so no."

"How about smoking? I'm not exactly familiar with the demographics of our future clientele."

"Would a bunch of otaku smoke in a maid café?"

"Aren't you-"

"Would a bunch of otaku smoke in a made café?" Fukuda repeated, widening his eyes for good measure.

Aoki thought it was a reasonable assumption that they would spend their time drooling after the waitresses than smoking their time away, so she penciled in _otaku do not smoke_, completely missing the point.

"Next order of business, then," said Aoki. "How on earth do we find maids?"

* * *

><p>"No," said Iwase, slamming the door in their faces.<p>

Hiramaru made a face - the closest he could get to expressing intense dislike towards a member of the female population - but Fukuda had no qualms about calling her a nasty, inhospitable bitch.

"You wouldn't look good in thigh highs anyway," yelled Fukuda, and got a hairdryer thrown in his general direction for his efforts. "Crazy skank."

Hiramaru wondered about Fukuda'd recruitment methods, but Aoki had wanted to avoid complaints about harassment - Aoki figured that violence was better than psychologically scarred girls.

In truth, Aoki would have preferred working with girls, but she figured she'd have to get used to an equal gender distribution once operations started.

They tried Miho next, only Mashiro from 2-A balked at the idea and threatened Fukuda with serious bodily harm. Mashiro, while generally passive, seemed to possess a violent streak a mile wide concerning his not-girlfriend. Besides, Miho had cringed at Hiramaru's pointed stare - clearly, Hiramaru was a deterrent rather than a promoter of good relations with the female persuasion.

"I'm sure they're just intimidated," said Aoki, even if she didn't mean it.

"Er," said Fukuda, looking upwards to some deity, "I don't think it's about being intimidated."

"Okay," said Aoki, loudly, "what about Kaya from 2-D? You know, Takagi's girlfriend?"

"You do realize she'll never say yes unless you ensure that Takagi'll be there, and Takagi will never show up unless we give him a lot of free coupons, right?"

Aoki thought of the last crazy-eyed expression on the last girl Hiramaru came into contact with and said, "I'm sure we'll manage."

Kaya said yes, and didn't even want to get paid. "Free labor," sing-songed Fukuda, and Aoki kind of felt bad about it - at least, until Kaya threatened to punch her if she didn't stop feeling guilty.

* * *

><p>To be fair, it wasn't just Aoki and Hiramaru who bordered on inappropriate. Fukuda, no matter how many times he vehemently denied it, also had his slip ups.<p>

The thing about Fukuda was that when he got something in his head, sooner or later he lost sight of everything else important, like eating, sleeping, or common decency. This was best illustrated in his momentary act of rebellion after the fifteenth girl he had a crush on in elementary slapped him after he confessed and said, much later, when the blood was starting to clot, "I'm so sorry, Fukuda-kun, I thought you were Hiramaru!"

It wasn't that Fukuda and Hiramaru looked like honest to god twins. There was just some strange sort of resemblance between the two of them, and it didn't help that Hiramaru insisted he wear his hair long so that he didn't feel like the only girl in class (he refused to cut his hair on the principle that - well, actually, he never said why, but Fukuda suspected it had everything to do with the most popular girl in class professing her weakness for tall, dark, and long-haired boys after Yu Yu Hakusho started airing), and Fukuda felt that spiting him would be too much of a bother. Still, Fukuda, for all intents and purposes, was getting sick of his not-identity crisis.

By the end of sixth grade, Fukuda had dyed his hair white. His mother had despaired, then, saying, "You couldn't have waited for thirty more years like your father did?" to which his father had said, "I didn't get my first gray hair until I was _thirty two._"

In retrospect, the choice of color wasn't very practical or wise - two things his teachers didn't associate with Fukuda much. For one thing, he found out early on that he couldn't easily maintain the hair color with bleach unless he wanted to have blonde hair (which he didn't, because the yankee jokes got a little too out of hand). It also got kind of annoying when people kept mistaking him for a cosplayer when he really wasn't trying to be one, but it wasn't as bad as when people assumed he'd been through some horrific trauma and tiptoed around him like he did when his sister was having one of those days. It gave him some semblance of quiet, but he kind of missed the days when people could look him in the eye and not say, "I'm so sorry you had to go through so much pain." (Hiramaru, the asshole, got punched for his condolences.)

At the very least, people had stopped teasing him about looking like Hiramaru's brother, which was just disgusting. It didn't lessen the resemblance where it mattered, though - in the sharp edges of his jaw, in his high cheekbones, in his mouth pursed, considering.

It still didn't stop the teachers from punishing him with extra cleaning duties, but he did get a few chocolates come February for his troubles.

* * *

><p>Next step: advertising. "How bad could it be?" Aoki had thought, at first.<p>

How bad indeed.

The flyer looked like it had been hand-drawn by a monkey on steroids. A monkey with an excellent grasp of technique and a sense of proportion, but a drugged-up monkey nonetheless, because Mashiro simply could not accept the fact that anything less than human would dredge up something as shameless as this. From the look on Hiramaru's face, neither could he.

("That, or a TV producer," was Takagi's ever-unhelpful input in the matter.

"Or Nanamine-kun," said Kaya.

"It's so good of you two to have so much faith in me," said Nanamine, crumpling the flyer in his closed fist and chucking it at Kosugi.).

The point was, Fukuda was batshit crazy. All of his friends had an inkling of that fact for a while - since junior year in middle school, to be precise, when Fukuda had spent an entire year mooning over a senior in the exclusive Catholic school a few miles away and sent her love letters in the form of confession panels from shounen manga coupled with the questionable panty shot or two... hundred. Nase hadn't taken it too well.). But the cat-eared maid girl (well, it was _supposed_ to be a girl, but Fukuda always did have a knack for drawing beefy, bulked-up men or skinny adolescent boys instead of voluptuous vixens) posing provocatively and saying ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME in the dialogue box was just. _No_.

("I still think it looks like something Nanamine-kun cooked up," muttered Kaya, under her breath.)

"Oh," said Hiramaru, eyeing the flyer with distrust, "that's the ugliest girl I've ever seen. I wouldn't tap that."

"_Please_, as if you can tap _anything_," said Fukuda, but penciled in his day planner _get Nizuma to teach me how to draw girls_ anyway. "And your imaginary girlfriend from Osaka doesn't count."

Hiramaru spluttered. "She's from Hokkaido, not Osaka," he said, eager to defend her location, never mind the fact that he didn't claim that she even existed anywhere other than in his imagination in the first place.

"At least I can draw something other than bears," said Fukuda, gleefully.

"It's not a bear, it's an _otter_-"

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention in kindergarten. I didn't have the hots for Marika-sensei, you know."

"_Anyway_," said Mashiro, ever the voice of reason, "you were saying something about how amazing your idea was?"

"It'll be awesome," crowed Fukuda, leaning over his desk as he began flyer design number 24. "I mean, seriously? Maids! Cake! An hour's worth of servitude for 1000 yen! What more could you ask for?"

Mashiro respected Fukuda. Really, he did. Only, sometimes, Mashiro suspected Fukuda either liked dicking around with everybody, or he had no respect for his kouhai whatsoever. "Did Aoki-san say anything about this?"

"Eh," said Fukuda, making circular motions with his fingers, "she'll come around when she sees the profits skyrocket."

"You make it sound like a cheap escort service," said Takagi, dryly, only Mashiro had the grace to look ashamed for him and elbowed his ribs so hard Takagi winced.

"Okay," amended Fukuda. "how does 2000 yen sound?"

"Senpai," said Mashiro, wincing, "I don't think raising the price can make it better."

"Still pretty cheap though," said Takagi. Mashiro shot him a dirty look.

"You, shut up."

Kosugi, ever the one with the worst luck, smoothened out the flyer and stared, horrified. "Fukuda-kun," said Kosugi, "are you running a soapland?"

* * *

><p>"No one," said Aoki, very loudly, "is running a brothel house."<p>

"That's what you say _now_," whimpered Kosugi.

It took a while to convince the rest that there was no existing soapland under Aoki's name, nor was there the possibility of one coming to fruition. When he had finally been restrained and a few asthma attacks had been prevented, Kosugi turned out to be their most ardent supporter so far, no thanks to Nanamine planting _ideas_ in his head.

"Nanamine could be your delivery boy, if you need him," volunteered Kosugi, whether out of spite or a genuine desire to help was anyone's guess. It was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for.

"Ha ha ha," said Nanamine. "What am I, a butler-to-go service?"

"Don't give them ideas," said Mashiro, a little desperately, but at the thoughtful look on Aoki and Fukuda's faces, it was too late.

"Oh, crap," said Nanamine, sliding down his seat. "I really have to learn how to shut my mouth."

"That's impossible," said Takagi, "where would I get my entertainment?"

"Bite me," said Nanamine. Kaya perked up in her seat, looking hopeful at the prospect of that.

"Please?" Kaya said. Takagi and Nanamine looked at her and simultaneously shuddered.

"Butler-to-go, huh," said Fukuda, "I bet the housewives would love that."

"I wouldn't," said Hiramaru, looking sickened at the idea.

Aoki thought her mother would, but didn't voice it out loud. Instead, she snapped out of her profit-induced hallucination and said, "Whatever happened to our high moral ground?"

"You're running a _maid café_," said Fukuda, and really, that explained everything.

* * *

><p>They cut cleaning duties on Friday and spent the afternoon lugging in jars of paint to the café. They covered the floor with newspaper and argued over the paint mixture ("Fukuda, if you think sea green would look good, you're blind." "Says the guy who thinks pink would be more visually appealing? Our customers are going to be guys, not girls, you know."). A tiny paint war might have been started; then they forgot about the primer and despaired at their shoddy handiwork.<p>

"Well," said Fukuda, halfway through their project for the day, "I can safely say I never want to go into interior design, ever."

"You'd be the worst," said Hiramaru, as he was slumped over the counter suffering from dehydration.

"Shut up," said Fukuda, flicking paint at Hiramaru's general direction. "Useless."

"I have a _condition_," said Hiramaru, as if that answered all of Fukuda's complaints about him.

Aoki inspected Fukuda's side of the wall, tilting her head. "He's right, you know," and Hiramaru crowed, triumphantly.

When Fukuda didn't answer, Aoki looked at him, bemused. Fukuda was looking at her as if he were trying to piece together some part of her he couldn't understand, like he didn't know how to take her actions at face-value.

"You know," said Fukuda, "I used to hate your guts in junior high."

"That does explain why you avoided me like a plague," said Aoki. She remembered they stopped calling each other by their first names since the start of junior high, through some unspoken agreement.

"Yeah, well," said Fukuda, rubbing the back of his neck. He left streaks of paint at the nape, and she didn't bother to tell him. "You were always so high and mighty, you know? Like you didn't give a crap about everyone else."

She thought of herself, so fixated on success and sure of herself, even then. She would never have looked at the floor or felt ashamed of herself, before, when she'd used her intelligence as her defense and didn't like being judged for her sex. "I know. I think it was the shyness, though," she offered, but Fukuda looked at her skeptically. "Alright, maybe I was a little judgmental."

"Prissy," said Fukuda, nodding.

"I know," said Aoki, feeling the corners of her lips twitch. "If I were you, I wouldn't be able to stand me either."

"I'm glad, though," said Fukuda, a little awkward in his oversized shirt and his not-bedroom slippers and his white bandana, "that you changed."

They stared at each other with paint dripping on the newspapers, before Fukuda covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"Oh god," said Fukuda, "stop turning my life into a god damn soap opera. I can't believe I said something that cheesy. Hiramaru, I'm turning into you, you asshole!"

In the middle of the café, with a paintbrush in hand and waiting for the paint to dry, she thought she liked Fukuda now more than ever; they were still children, with parts of themselves not so different from when they'd called each other _Yuriko_ or _Shinta_ and now she really, really wanted to pull him closer by the collar of his v-neck shirt, to wrap her arms around his too-broad shoulders and call him a kid.

Instead, she kissed Fukuda.

"What was that for?" Fukuda demanded, a little confused, and Aoki, mind still heady with youth and contentment, kissed Hiramaru on the cheek too, to stop him from spluttering and making miming motions of decapitating Fukuda as soon as possible.

"Nothing," said Aoki, "I'm just happy."

One week later, with the menus laminated, the frilly aprons ironed out and the table cloths smelling like fabric softener, Aoki still felt happy enough not to wince every time she said, "Welcome home, master," even though Hiramaru was constantly torn between erupting into raptures or sulking in the kitchen when her smile wasn't directed at him. From 5 to 8 they catered to customers' whims and fended off the potential perverts with Kaya's fists of righteousness. Kosugi showed up with a thoughtful gift of flowers for the opening, and Takagi and Mashiro alternated between poking dubiously at Kaya's cookies and laughing at the pictures on the wall that Fukuda had put up, posters of maids with cat ears from god-knows-what show that Fukuda framed. Fukuda threatened to dump the next boiling kettle of water at the two of them, but didn't follow through after Kaya had counter-threatened him with bodily harm. Before they locked up, the four of them had tea in the kitchen, mapping out the rest of the year with plans for Valentines, White Day and Christmas of epic proportions, and Aoki couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else, even when Hiramaru had been a little too uptight or Fukuda had kept yelling at her about her lack of social skills ("We're trying to get discounts for the tea, you idiot, not cut off from our supplier!") for the entire afternoon.

She blamed the tea for that. Fukuda made good tea when he wanted to.

* * *

><p>The relative peace didn't last long.<p>

Aoki was out stuffing the last of the garbage bags in the bin when the bell above the front door had chimed, signaling a new customer. She was vaguely surprised that she didn't hear Kaya's usual welcome, and when she stepped into the kitchen, Kaya was there, freaking out.

"Aoki-san," said Kaya, "whatever you do, don't step outside."

"There's a customer," said Aoki. Floundering business or not, they had to take what they could get. "It'd look bad if no one attended to them."

Kaya bit her lip. "I could turn over the sign?"

"The door wasn't locked," said Aoki.

She was too tired to hear the rest of Kaya's wheedling, so she put on an apron and grabbed a notepad off the counter. She made her way to table number three, and she would have said, robotically, "welcome home, master," only she was too surprised to see Hattori-sensei, the Math teacher.

"Oh, fuck," said Aoki, reminiscent of Fukuda. Behind the safety of the counter, Kaya covered her face with her hands, as if to deny reality. Hattori-sensei didn't look impressed with the language, or the histrionics in the background.

Thirty minutes later and a complementary tea or two, Aoki was seated across Hattori-sensei as he, very carefully, went over the student handbook and cited Article V, Section III under rights and responsibilities of the student body. Hattori-sensei was kind and well-meaning and no-nonsense. Aoki figured he'd let this one slip.

"We don't allow part time jobs," said Hattori-sensei, "and I can't make exceptions, even for one of our best students."

He was also a bit of a bastard when it came to playing the guilt card.

"Look," said Hattori-sensei, frown softening at Aoki's troubled expression, "I heard about your grandfather, and you must have loved him very much, but no one would want to see you run yourself ragged for something you're not prepared for. How many hours have you slept for the past week?"

"That's not-," began Aoki, only to crumple under his glare. "Six hours," said Aoki, weakly, and it was only Wednesday.

"Sasaki-sensei's noticed you've been sleeping in art class," said Hattori-sensei. "Even Yoshida-sensei thinks you're crumbling under stress."

She had nothing to say to that. Sasaki-sensei had frowned at her for the rest of the period and Yoshida-sensei had bemoaned how hanging out with Fukuda and Hiramaru had made a mess out of her for the past few weeks, and they were some of the more forgiving teachers. Yuujirou-sensei had expressed his irritation repeatedly about her recently acquired classroom habits.

"You should quit," said Hattori-sensei, kindly. "I know it's hard for you, to not come out at the top all the time, but it's not supposed to be your whole life. There's college to think about. I'd hate to see you regret anything five years down the road."

But he was wrong. He didn't know that this was her life now, and if she couldn't even succeed at this, what else could she hope to amount to in the future? Who was to say that being a ronin was better than being in the business of selling fantasies over tea? She didn't say all that, however, and kept her head bowed, saying, "I understand."

* * *

><p>For the next few days, Aoki alternated between irritation and feigned nonchalance. She'd fought with Fukuda over the smallest things (the number of table napkins available, the angle of the chairs, the mood music) and even Hiramaru had taken to tiptoeing around her, a little terrified and uncertain how to proceed around her lest she snap his head off like she'd done to Fukuda. At least Tuesdays were slow days. Too bad the account books were dampening her barely neutral mood to hell.<p>

"Oh my god," said Kaya, draping her jacket over Aoki's shoulders, "if today is one of those days, you should go home and curl up with a hot water bottle and Midol."

"You should get Fukuda to take you home," said Takagi. Kaya shushed him and went back to fanning Aoki with a menu.

"Weren't you going out with Hiramaru?" Kaya said, leaning over the back rest of the empty seat. "He should be back in a few minutes with the meds. Unless you'd rather kill someone than take anything?"

"No," said Takagi, confused, "aren't they just tea friends or some equally hopeless thing? I thought you were dating Fukuda."

What.

"Excuse me?" Aoki spluttered.

Once upon a time, Aoki had had a minor, debilitating crush on Takagi, but after observing that she couldn't possibly get in between Kaya's epic pursuit of Takagi (mostly after Kaya had punched out the last rival for his oblivious affections), she simply let it go.

Besides, they were probably better off friends than anything else. She would have spent an eternity in stiff conversation with Takagi over tea and crumpets, despairing over Takagi's select moments of male idiocy and insensitivity. She had Fukuda and Hiramaru around enough for that.

"On second thought," said Kaya, rubbing her chin, "you and Fukuda _do_ have the married couple vibes going on, what with the countless arguments. Or vaguely incestuous siblings."

"Does that make Fukuda the lucky childhood friend?" Takagi said. He wrote something on his Math notebook, and Aoki didn't even have to read it to know he'd jotted down a ridiculous idea referencing Aoki's non-existent love life.

"You _tramp_," said Kaya, with grudging admiration. Aoki's cheeks were warm when she touched them in her mortification.

Takagi set his cup of tea down, carefully. "You should be more careful about toying with their affections."

Aoki brought her fingers to her head, rubbing away her incoming migraine. "I'm not dating either of them," clarified Aoki, loudly. "Ever."

And, as luck would have it, Hiramaru was outside, within hearing distance. Takagi and Kaya looked like they wanted to shrink into their seats when Hiramaru, with the grace of a drunken maudlin, stormed towards Aoki and grabbed her by her shoulders. "Aoki-san," said Hiramaru, looking distraught, "I thought we had an understanding."

Aoki's life was not a noon time drama. If it were, Kaya would be quiet and not texting _Omg epic break up_ to everyone in her contact list, up to and including Mashiro's mother. Aoki shot her a disapproving look.

"Sorry," said Aoki, amazed that she could keep her voice even and detached when all she wanted to do was throttle the living daylights out of her friends. "I didn't mean to get your hopes up, Hiramaru-kun."

_If_ this were a drama, this was the part where the heroine should have thrown the tea things at the asshole love interest, but because of gender roles (and the fact that there was no romantic entanglement involved, her brain insisted) and Hiramaru's incapacity to do more than choke back a manly sob and run out of the café, into the sweltering heat of the sun (because rain was completely overrated and it wasn't that season yet), Aoki did it to Fukuda when he got back, instead.

"This was your idea," she reminded him, and didn't run after Hiramaru, even if she knew she should have. "He'll never forgive me now, I suppose."

Kaya and Takagi shuffled guiltily in their seats, and Fukuda said, blankly, "Should we go out to celebrate, then?"

"No," said Aoki, after a pause. "Let him cool down, for a bit."

Hiramaru didn't come back to help out after that.

* * *

><p>Aoki was still buried in the account books by the end of the week. Miho had agreed to fill in for her in Hiramaru's absence, sparing her the explanations, although Kaya had probably filled her in. Miho had touched Aoki on the shoulder, briefly, and simply wished her luck.<p>

She'd thought that after day one of the post-not-breakup-breakup, dealing with an understaffed café would get easier. By day four she was ready to throw in the towel, spurred only by the fear of failure; on any other day, she woul have known that this was going nowhere, but she was too tired to rationalize it all away. After argument number 131 with Fukuda, she had crumpled on an empty chair and willed herself not to cry.

They'd had the most awkward five minutes of silence, filled only by Fukuda's restless shifting and Aoki's choked sobs. Aoki had thought that she could handle the pressure, but now that she'd had too many signs pointing towards the direction of yet another failure, she didn't think she'd be able to make it through the rest of the night without letting out some of the disappointment churning in her stomach.

"It'll be okay," said Fukuda. "All businesses stumble, and we just need to find a few more people to help out -"

Even through the haze of her self-flagellation, she'd realized she'd been unfair to Fukuda, to Hiramaru, to Kaya. She'd almost gotten them in danger of suspension just for working in the café, and she didn't want that stain in their record to affect their chances at getting into a good college. She'd been too selfish and hesitant to think of all the consequences her own quest for redemption could have cost them.

"I'm closing the shop," said Aoki.

"-and I was thinking we could," said Fukuda, only to catch himself mid-sentence. "Wait, _what_?"

"I'm closing the shop," she repeated. Fukuda looked confused, for a moment, and she watched his expression change from uncertain to irritated to genuinely angry.

He slammed his palms on the counter, forceful enough to nearly knock over the nearby calculator. "You can't do that!"

Aoki took a deep breath. "Fukuda-kun," began Aoki, the same way she'd been running this speech through her mind since she'd had that conversation with Hattori-sensei, "you know I'm a senior. I can't just let this take over my life. I have exams to think about, and you know we're barely breaking even." Plus there was the danger of getting caught, of ruining their chances at higher education. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

It had sounded a little like a lie. Fukuda's lips were curved downward in an unhappy frown.

"That café?" Fukuda growled, his voice rising by the second. "It was our life, for a _month_, and now you're gonna forget about it like you forgot about being honest with your friends and thought of redeeming yourself or some stupid shit like that. Well screw you, Aoki."

Sometimes Aoki hated how well Fukuda knew her. She couldn't deny the things he had called her out on, and that just made her cheeks alternate between hot and cold, her knuckles shaking from a sudden burst of irritation.

"We weren't friends," shouted Aoki back, if only to feel vindicated. She waited for the indignation to twine around her insides and tug the same way the rage was starting to get her, and it was so easy to feel self-righteous about everything. Maybe that was why Fukuda always defaulted to this mode.

"Yeah, we were just convenient, right?" Fukuda spat out, wounded. "I thought you changed since junior high, but I guess you're still a frigid bitch under all that."

"Well, you're as desperate as I am to prove yourself anyway," said Aoki, and she regretted the words as soon as she let them out. "At least I have the decency not to make excuses for myself."

She thought she'd have the satisfaction of having the last word, but when she stared at her fingers and willed herself not to throw the account books into the nearest waste basket, she didn't feel anything but shame.

* * *

><p>She didn't tell anyone that Hattori-sensei found out about the café. What was the point, she reasoned. it wouldn't bring back her café if she did, and it didn't guarantee that her friends would hate her less. So she studied, and studied, and studied, and if Yuriko ever heard her cry in her room, bent over her textbook with her cellphone displaying Fukuda or Hiramaru's number, she never said anything.<p>

"Don't jump off a cliff," said Yuuko, patting her on the head; she didn't sound like she was joking, but what would Aoki know? "Your last mock exam was really good, so I think you should cut yourself some slack now."

"I won't," said Aoki, and went back to biting the nub of her pen, distracted by her phone and the thought of the unhappy slant of Fukuda's mouth, the frailty in Hiramaru's grip.

She never pressed the call button.

* * *

><p>She passed Todai.<p>

Fukuda and Hiramaru didn't congratulate her.

She didn't count on it.

* * *

><p>The Farewell Party at the end of February passed without much fanfare. She'd spent the rest of the night watching the bonfire from her classroom, the lights turned off in an effort to evade the teachers and the student council.<p>

She thought she'd seen Fukuda in the crowd on the grounds, but she didn't dare look again. There was no point in searching for absent people, after all, not when she knew he didn't have a lot of friends in her year level and he had too much pride to even give her some closure, the same way she did.

By March, most of the seniors didn't bother showing up at school anymore. Exams were done, and the only ones willing to go to school were the club upperclassmen who were supposed to have retired weeks earlier but stayed out of a misplaced sense of school loyalty and some unwillingness to relinquish their positions to their kouhai. She'd gotten texts from Kaya wailing about how it was unfair that Aoki could skip school without any repercussions, but Aoki never replied. It felt wrong, one way or another, to continue to communicate with her when she knew Kaya was, by default, Fukuda's friend more than hers.

She kept the curtains of her bedroom window closed. Across her window, Fukuda's bedroom was in sight, and she couldn't bear to look at it and know that beyond it, Fukuda was probably sulking over the latest MMORPG and wishing he could kill her instead of an imaginary monster online. It was sad that she knew too well how he operated, and she didn't particularly feel spiteful about it – just, sad.

She spent her afternoons sweeping the floor of the café, with its perpetually closed sign on the front door. Yuuko came with her, sometimes, when she didn't have classes at her university, and Yuuko watched her from the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and looking at her with an unidentifiable emotion flitting across her features when she thought Aoki wasn't looking.

"I'm thinking of giving it up for good," said Aoki, conversationally. "Mother always said I'd be bad at customer service, and look where that got me."

"Yu-chan?" Yuuko asked, uncertainly, but Aoki plowed on.

"It was stupid to think that grandfather was serious about this. I mean, I couldn't even be responsible for myself without self-destructing, and I just… I just."

"Yu-chan," said Yuuko, taking the broom from her hands, "you're crying."

Aoki scrunched up her face, then looked at her fingers, honestly surprised.

"Oh," said Yuuko, sympathetically, "come on, I'll let you drive my ugly pink car for a few minutes. How does that sound?"

"Horrible," said Aoki, and Yuuko laughed.

* * *

><p>Yuuko didn't let her drive, but come graduation day she did let Aoki park the aforementioned car before the rest of the guests came. She didn't learn how to parallel park, not exactly, but she at least confirmed her belief that she wasn't fit to be let loose navigating a car – the streets of Japan would be safe for yet another day.<p>

Kaya was waiting at the gates, pestering her for a button. "I thought you were supposed to ask for Takagi's next year," said Aoki, complying with some confusion.

Kaya curled her fingers into Aoki's palm, tightening her hold around the button, and said, sincerely, "I admire you the most, senpai."

She pulled Aoki into a quick hug, and let Yuuko drag Aoki to the gym for the ceremony. "I'll see you around, senpai!" Kaya called out, and she sounded so sure of it that Aoki didn't have the heart to tell her how unrealistic the chances of that were.

"Yeah," said Aoki, instead, "okay," and the smile on Kaya's face was probably worth the lie.

Aoki saw Hiramaru at the graduation ceremony. He was standing with the rest of the student council in the sidelines, and he flinched when he looked at her; she swallowed the lump in her throat and kept her eyes fixed forward, where the student council president was making a speech.

A month ago she couldn't wait for graduation to come. She'd been so focused on moving on to college, as if that had been the only answer in her life, that she didn't really feel happy most of the time in high school. Only she did feel happy, once, and now she was back to step one, about to brave a new world.

Her diploma promised her no answers, no resolution. Only concrete proof that she'd been here, once, and had passed an adolescent ritual. Ten years later, she would probably miss this – the crinkling of the ribbon on her uniform, the smell of her polished leather shoes. Her seat in class 3-C, nearest the hallway. A boy with dyed hair and a perpetual smirk, another with a masochistic streak and a willingness to be used by all the beautiful women in the world. Would they outgrow it, she wondered. Would she ever learn?

She let her parents take pictures of her with Yuuko and Kaya. Her classmates pulled her into an impromptu photography session for a while, and her parents had left earlier than she did when she professed a desire to see her classroom one last time.

"My baby sister is so sentimental," teased Yuuko, but Aoki didn't deny it.

On her way to the third floor, she saw Fukuda and Hiramaru outside 2-A, the classroom nearest the staircase she'd gone up on. Aoki faltered in her steps, hoping they hadn't seen her, but from the tight set of Fukuda's jaw, she knew that wasn't the case.

"Hi," said Fukuda, finally, and Hiramaru made a feeble attempt to wave.

"Hi," said Aoki.

"So," said Fukuda. "Congratulations on your graduation."

"Thank you," said Aoki.

They stared at each other in the hallway for a few more seconds before Hiramaru finally caved in and bawled, crossing the hallway with his too-long limbs and clutching at Aoki's hands with some reverence. "I'm sorry, Fukuda, I can't stay mad at Aoki-san forever," said Hiramaru, sniveling, and Aoki, bemused, let him press tiny, worshipful kisses to her knuckles.

"Traitor," said Fukuda, but he sighed, as if he'd expected this. "Hattori-sensei told us about everything, so you could just stop being so pretentious for once. You could have just said so instead of feeding us all that bullshit."

"Look, Fukuda-kun," said Aoki, helpless, watching Fukuda take small, cautious steps forward. "I'm sorry for making you sad."

Fukuda winced, a little. He looked ready to protest at that, but Hiramaru kicked him.

"He accepts your apology," said Hiramaru, ignoring Fukuda's glare.

"I can't believe you'd sell out without telling us first," said Fukuda, flatly, and Hiramaru shrugged, too, finding it a fair enough argument. "It's like you didn't trust us enough or something."

"Sorry," said Aoki. "I didn't want-"

"Yeah, you and your stupid complex about failing," said Fukuda, but something in his expression seemed to soften. "But we wanted to fail with you, you know? It isn't right to leave our friend alone."

"Aoki-san," said Hiramaru, "I'll always support you."

Aoki smiled, a little strained, even as Fukuda whapped Hiramaru upside the head and yelled about how he needed to get his priorities straight. She felt around in her pocket, and let her fingers curl around the key.

Tomorrow Aoki would hide her school ID in her dresser and put away her diploma for filing. She'd have to surrender the key to the café to the lawyer and the realtor, too. But they had a little more time before that.

"Come with me to close shop," said Aoki, and they did.

* * *

><p>They sat on the counter, knees touching. Hiramaru kept complaining about the cash register digging into his back and Aoki was worried the counter wouldn't be able to support their weight, but Fukuda, with his insatiable need for manly bonding and closure grabbed at their wrists and made them watch the cream-colored wall, now absent of picture frames with drawings, with the same sort of nostalgia reserved for once-loved homes.<p>

It was Fukuda who spoke first.

"We weren't prepared, anyway," said Fukuda, rationalizing when it was obvious none of them felt like talking about it. "Too much work."

"There's maintenance," said Aoki, pointing out her index finger, then her middle finger. "Inventories."

"Taxes," said Hiramaru. "Oh god, taxes. Who were we kidding? We're just kids."

"Four months," said Fukuda, "man, what a waste of time I would have spent bumming around at home or getting the high score at Tekken."

"You could have," said Aoki, mildly.

"Would have," corrected Fukuda, and Hiramaru spared him the eye rolling. It was Fukuda, after all, who would have spent his time in a part time job for the experience if not for the money - Fukuda who invested too much of himself in his short-term goals, making everyone else think he had too much of a one-track mind. Who was to say it was bad?

Aoki hid her smile behind the pretense of taking a sip of her iced coffee. Behind her half-lidded eyes, she looked at the the painted walls, at the fruits of their labor. It was a shame to let this go.

"What did you guys write for homeroom?" Fukuda fiddled with the soda can he'd bought from the convenience store across the school, mostly to find something to do with his hands. Seventeen years old, and still fidgeting like he was twelve.

"I don't know," said Aoki. The world was limitless, and she could do anything, go anywhere, but she didn't know if it would have been worth it. "I could be a teacher, I suppose."

"You could be my math teacher any day," said Hiramaru, and Fukuda hit him on the shoulder, without heat.

"That'd mean you'd have to fail for four more years, idiot," said Fukuda, with more affection than he'd meant to slip out. "What about you? I bet you wrote something like billionaire pimp."

"I wrote company employee in my career goal sheet," said Hiramaru, sounding terse. It was the safest option, and Hiramaru always did like the easy way out, but Aoki figured that somewhere, behind the lazy words, he'd wanted the absolute idea of the wife, kids, dog, mortgage - the whole shebang of normalcy that he could hope to get.

Fukuda laughed, nearly choking on his drink. Aoki had to hold his arm to keep his can upright. "Seriously? You have no sense of adventure at all."

Hiramaru looked torn between being offended and being disgusted. In the end, he settled for both. "I want stability, unlike _you_."

"You should have been a girl," said Fukuda. "Then you could just marry the next rich bastard that eyes your -"

Aoki coughed, delicately. "I thought you didn't write anything in your sheet, Fukuda-kun," said Aoki. "At least, you didn't write anything before homeroom period."

"Oh my god, you went through my things, didn't you?"

"I may have gotten Iwase-san to," said Aoki, but her tone was impish, almost, and Hiramaru laughed.

"Hey," offered Fukuda, voice mild and cool even after nearly suffocating himself with his soda, "maybe I'll be a mangaka instead."

Aoki hummed, a vague sort of agreement. "Yeah," said Aoki, staring at the back of Fukuda's hands, knobby and worn, and Hiramaru's skin with veins spider-web thin, "maybe you could be."

* * *

><p><strong>end<strong>


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